France, Germany and UK begin process of reimposing UN sanctions on Iran over nuclear program

France, Germany and the United Kingdom have begun the process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

The triggering of the snapback sanctions, a move that the United States welcomed on Thursday, comes as diplomatic efforts to restrain Iran’s growing nuclear program have faltered. Tehran has condemned the move and warned there could be consequences for reimplementing sanctions.

The “E3” countries notified the UN Security Council Thursday that they were triggering the snapback mechanism, which was included as part of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Iran has increasingly breached the nuclear deal after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), in 2018.

“Today, Iran’s non-compliance with the JCPoA is clear and deliberate, and sites of major proliferation concern in Iran are outside of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) monitoring,” the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK said in a joint statement on Thursday. “Iran has no civilian justification for its high enriched uranium stockpile.”